LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

What was Wanda Sykes thinking? Perhaps more to the point, what was President Obama thinking when he laughed and smiled as the comedienne wished Rush Limbaugh dead?

Although the left is reporting her speech as “taking shots” at Limbaugh and mocking everyone, that’s a gross misrepresentation of what turned into a hateful and disgusting diatribe.

But the speech took a very ugly turn when she laid into Limbaugh. This is what she said:

“Rush Limbaugh said he hopes this administration fails, so you’re saying, ‘I hope America fails.’ You’re, like, ‘I don’t care about people losing their homes, their jobs, our soldiers in Iraq.’ He just wants the country to fail. To me, that’s treason.

“He’s not saying anything differently than what Osama bin Laden is saying. You know, you might want to look into this, sir, because I think Rush Limbaugh was the 20th hijacker. But he was just so strung out on OxyContin he missed his flight.”

She then concluded, “Rush Limbaugh I hope the country fails: I hope his kidneys fail, how about that? He needs a good waterboarding, that’s what he needs.”

Obama seemed to think this bit was pretty hilarious, grinning and chuckling and turning to share the “joke” with the person sitting on his right.

There’s not much room for differing interpretations of what Sykes said. She called Limbaugh a terrorist and a traitor, suggested that he be tortured and wished him dead.

What was his crime? Hoping that Obama’s policies – which he views as socialist – will fail.

And Obama laughing when someone wishes Limbaugh dead?

Hard to take from the man who promised a new era of civility and elevated debate in Washington.

William Hurt

Green Valley

Single-most-feasible health care approach

Single-payer is the only way to fix this nation’s health care system, or at the very least, as a public option available to all citizens.

The insurance companies will not play fair until they are forced to. And even then, they’ll cheat and steal at every possible opportunity.

Get with it.

Richard Grossman

Vail

Needling for debate on accessible medicine

It is negligent to ignore the will of the majority of the people as far as single-pay health care is concerned.

The people of our country are in dire need of a health care plan that will ensure all our citizens receive the care our medical profession is capable of giving. A fair debate on this subject is a necessity.

Please see that this debate takes place.

N. Jean Rogers

Tubac

Spurring Giffords to rein in horse slaughter

I gave U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords my total support because I was under the impression she would help protect our wild horses.

I guess I was wrong. Since the election, she has given no support to the horse.

I do not believe in horse slaughter. I believe in euthanasia for unwanted or injured horses.

It may cost more for the owner, but it is the only way we can ensure they don’t suffer at a slaughterhouse, at home or in other countries like Mexico or Canada.

Horses deserve better than this. Are we a society that simply sends the unwanted to be tortured at the hands of humans so they can end up on plates in Europe and other countries? I hope not. I hope we can be better people than this.

I was hoping Gabrielle Giffords felt the same way.

René Iotti

Use fertilized eggs

for stem cell research

America is known for incessantly moving forward and unraveling mysteries attached to life.

When it comes to stem cell research, America seems stagnant. We watch millions of people die of diabetes, and millions more from cancer.

If people keep dying of these same diseases, then it is time we realize that current treatments that suppress symptoms are not enough. It is time to move on.

Now that America can further treatments for terminally ill people, there are still questions on the ethics of stem cell research, especially with embryonic, which kills the embryo after extraction.

But consider in vitro fertilization. Fertilized eggs are left frozen and eventually terminated; however, that doesn’t raise as much controversy as stem cells.

When leftover eggs are used to further stem cell research, they can only lead to finding cures. There is nothing to lose since the fertilized eggs are destroyed in the end.

With the health rate of Americans decreasing, and new diseases emerging constantly, citizens need to keep up.

As many as 24 million Americans now suffer from diabetes. We are all somehow affected, either through friends or family.

It is about time people stop discouraging efforts made with stem cell research.

Researchers do not want to tackle this the controversial way, but if that is the only way now, it is worth pursuing.

Akua Minta

Our Digital Archive

This blog page archives the entire digital archive of the Tucson Citizen from 1993 to 2009. It was gleaned from a database that was not intended to be displayed as a public web archive. Therefore, some of the text in some stories displays a little oddly. Also, this database did not contain any links to photos, so though the archive contains numerous captions for photos, there are no links to any of those photos.

There are more than 230,000 articles in this archive.

In TucsonCitizen.com Morgue, Part 1, we have preserved the Tucson Citizen newspaper's web archive from 2006 to 2009. To view those stories (all of which are duplicated here) go to Morgue Part 1